David Cairns: I commend the hon. Gentleman on his question. He is, of course, a distinguished former Liberal Democrat Scottish spokesperson, and if press reports are to be believed, he may be back in that job tomorrow. I look forward to welcoming him back to the post, following the outcome of this evening's vote.
	As the hon. Gentleman knows, I am well aware of the potential of Solway firth; I have been to look at it twice in the past couple of months, and the Minister for Energy has been to the hon. Gentleman's constituency as well.
	I do not accept that DBERR is dragging its heels. We have ensured the correct levels of subsidy at the correct time in the development of technology. Because we have international targets to meet and the threat of climate change is real, those have been designed predominantly to meet the needs of onshore wind technology. However, the next generation of tidal and wave power will have a part to play and the Government stand ready to assist it.

Nicholas Clegg: May I add my own expressions of sympathy and condolence to the family and friends of Sergeant Duane Barwood?
	The Prime Minister once said that he would,
	"build a wider pro-European movement in Britain".
	How does he think he can achieve that by colluding with the anti-European Conservatives to block the in-out referendum that the British people really want?

Gordon Brown: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman entirely. The Conservative party leadership is being driven by the Eurosceptics on the Back Benches. I also agree with him that we need to put the pro-European case in the country, but I have to say that to go back to the 1970s and re-live a referendum in the 1970s is not the way to plan for the future. The way to plan for the future is to have an agenda for a global Europe, which is exactly what this Government have.

William Hague: The Minister says that that is the French, but here come the Belgians. The then Belgian Foreign Minister put it honestly when he said:
	"The aim of the Constitutional Treaty was to be more readable: the aim of this Treaty is to be unreadable... The Constitution aimed to be clear, whereas this Treaty had to be unclear. It is a success."
	I give full marks to Giuliano Amato, the former Italian Interior Minister, who said last year that it was
	"decided that the document should be unreadable. If it is unreadable, it is not constitutional, that was the sort of perception...Because if this is the kind of document that the IGC will produce, any Prime Minister—imagine the UK Prime Minister—can go to the Commons and say, 'look...it's absolutely unreadable, it's the typical Brussels treaty, nothing new, no need for a referendum.' Should you succeed in understanding it at first sight there might be some reason for a referendum, because it would mean that there is something new."
	At least that was a disarmingly honest admission of what was going on. Hardly anybody has been fooled—except, unfortunately, some of the party leaders in the House of Commons. In spite of the deliberate attempt to baffle the people of this and other countries, which should in itself redouble the determination of the people's elected representatives to secure a referendum, it is not beyond the wit of interested human beings to come up with a comparative analysis of the constitution and the Lisbon treaty.

William Hague: I give way to the author of the "mouse" argument

Don Foster: I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. On the answer he just gave, he has been asked about that matter three times already. One of the great merits of an in-out referendum is that there is total clarity about the implications, whatever result is obtained. There is a total lack of clarity about the referendum he proposes. Just once, would he answer this fundamental question: what would be the implications of a "no" result in the referendum he seeks?

Kenneth Clarke: I think that I am likely to be voting with the right hon. Gentleman tonight, but I am not sure that I shall be able to agree with any of the his arguments in favour or that proposition.
	Given that the right hon. Gentleman's Government negotiated this treaty, will he explain why it is in Britain's interest to ratify it, and what improvements it makes to the operation of the Union? Will he stop all this nonsense about its being different from the constitution when it is plainly the same in substance, and explain why it is better not to hold a referendum but have the issue decided in Parliament? He is getting into trouble because of the deviousness and, at times, the ridiculousness of the arguments he is using, which are far removed from the main points.

David Miliband: No. I want to make some progress.
	Sixteen changes do not affect us, because we are not in economic and monetary union and we have opt-ins on justice and home affairs. Fifteen are purely procedural—for instance, the procedures on the Comitology Committee, and the internal rules for appointing the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee. Those are not threats to the constitutional balance in this country. Twenty changes break down barriers to action in areas where that is clearly in the UK interest, from energy to development and disaster assistance.
	Today the right hon. Gentleman announced that he opposed all those changes. So he is abandoning the UK interest in key areas. That means no strengthening of EU research capacity, no swift route to protecting British business ideas and no new impetus for the promotion of energy security, let alone disaster aid. That is not defending the national interest; it is abandoning it.
	As for the foreign policy high representative, is it true that the treaty subverts the power of national Foreign Ministers under the auspices of the EU? No, it is not. The high representative will answer to Foreign Ministers, and foreign and defence policy is retained in a separate treaty.

Chris Bryant: I hate to say this, but I agree with the shadow Foreign Secretary. He said:
	"Democratic accountability is under threat... from the Government's regular use of referendums".
	That is why I have never supported the idea of a referendum, particularly a referendum on a treaty. It seems to me that if the people of Britain were to say yes or no, we would not know precisely to what elements of the treaty they were saying yes or no. We would not know whether they were agreeing with the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), with the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory), or with Labour Members who would like to see very different changes to the treaty.

Edward Davey: It is a shame that the right hon. Gentleman, who is a distinguished Member of this House, is not listening to what I am saying, and what we have been saying day in, day out. We have strongly argued that our pledge at the last election would be best honoured by an in-out vote; that is the nearest we can get to honouring it now that the constitutional treaty is dead.
	Let me return to the differences between the treaties.

Mark Harper: Let me just ask the hon. Gentleman this: my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), the shadow Foreign Secretary, made it clear that not only have we tabled amendments today, but the hon. Member for Glasgow, South-West (Mr. Davidson) has tabled one too, and it gives the option of having a referendum not only on the Lisbon treaty but on the in-out question that the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) asks for. Why then are the Liberal Democrats not going to support that amendment, which could, of course, be amended in the other place, and instead are just going to sit on their hands? Is that because they are going to adopt the principle of constructive abstention—a new concept in this House—or is it because they are too frightened of their constituents?

Edward Davey: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The difference between the Lisbon treaty and the constitutional treaty is to do with that very point. The constitutional treaty would have allowed people a vote on the Single European Act and the Maastricht treaty, and Nice and Amsterdam. We should have had a referendum on that, because it was a genuinely constitutional treaty wrapping all up the other treaties in one document. The Lisbon treaty does not do that. A vote on Lisbon offers no vote on Rome, no vote on Maastricht and no vote on the Single European Act. It really is that simple.

Don Foster: May I take my hon. Friend back to a point that he made a few minutes ago? He made it very clear that the outcome of an in-out referendum and its implications would be very clear, but he also said that a referendum as proposed by the Conservative party would enable people to decide, for example, on whether to reduce the number of Commissioners. Could he confirm that, even if people voted as he has just described, it is not clear that that would lead to a reduction in the number of Commissioners? Indeed, it is not at all clear what the outcome of a no vote in a Conservative referendum would be.

Edward Davey: The Minister has informed me from a sedentary position that the new Government of Cyprus, who are communist, are actually supporting the treaty. I did not intend to do a disservice to them, so I am grateful to the Minister for that.
	In examining the difference in the constitutional nature of the two treaties, I have been taking advice from the speeches of the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks. Back in 2006, he made a very interesting comment on the nature of European treaties. He said of the defunct constitutional treaty that
	"the fact that it was a Constitution, not simply a treaty, would have revolutionised the EU."
	There we have it—a revolutionary document, or a simple treaty? Referendums are the democratic way— [ Interruption. ] Revolutions are important in our government, and I would suggest that referendums are the democratic way to judge constitutional revolutions, but they are absolutely not the way to referee institutional reforms. That is why we Liberal Democrats believe that the only way to honour the pledge on Europe that most Members of this House gave at the last election is an in-out referendum.
	We heard yesterday, and we have heard today, accusations that people think that this is some sort of ruse—that somehow, we have made it up, that we imagined it all of a sudden. Let me take the House back to the history of the pledge that we made. My right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr. Kennedy), the then leader of the Liberal Democrats, explained before the general election what we considered our pledge to mean. When arguing the case for a referendum on the constitutional treaty, he said:
	"It's time for this debate—time for us to decide what we actually want from Europe. I believe, once the argument has been joined, the consensus will be that it's better to be in than out."
	He was right; that was the significance of our referendum pledge on the constitutional treaty.

Peter Bone: I have listened to many of the Committee proceedings, during which the hon. Gentleman has made a strong case for the Lisbon treaty. He made exactly the same point in  The Scotsman . He cited the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber, a former leader of the Liberal Democrats, saying that a vote on the Lisbon treaty would effectively be an in-out referendum. If that is effectively an in-out referendum, why on earth do they not vote for it?

Edward Davey: My point was that a vote on the constitutional treaty was the relevant in-out referendum. The hon. Gentleman has been honourable in his approach. He is from the "Better Off Out" group and he voted with us on 14 November, when we were grateful for his support.

Kate Hoey: Will the hon. Gentleman include in the Liberal Democrats' next election manifesto a pledge to have an in-out referendum? If so, will the electorate believe them, given that their last manifesto said that they wanted a referendum on the treaty?

Edward Davey: The hon. Lady still has not got it, and I am slightly worried for her. I will argue for the inclusion of an in-out referendum in our manifesto, but we shall decide that in the proper way. I do not think that the Foreign Secretary or the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks are writing their manifestos tonight either.
	It is time that we took the Europhobes on and called their bluff. I am sceptical about Eurosceptics. On the whole, they are really anti-Europeans and Europhobes, seeking to adopt a veneer of respectability and unwilling to see that to reform Europe is to be in Europe, at the table, arguing for your views. With a referendum on membership, the weakness of that position would be exposed, and with the yes vote winning through, as I believe it would, Britain could be unshackled from the chains of appeasement and ensure that European policy was based once again on a clear calculation of the national interest, and not on the interests of a weak Government avoiding screaming anti-European headlines.
	We know from the polls that it is the referendum on membership that the British people really want. The MORI poll last weekend was the only poll of the British people that has asked the relevant question—whether
	"if there were to be a referendum on Britain's relationship with Europe, would you prefer it to be a referendum only on the Lisbon Treaty, or a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU."
	In that poll, more than two to one backed the in-out option.
	Unfortunately, that option is not before the House because Labour and the Conservatives ganged up to gag the proposal the British people want. It has been rejected by the Conservatives because it would split them from top to bottom. By gagging debate and by opposing the vote that the British people really want, the Conservatives have once again lost the plot on Europe. They deserve to lose the vote tonight.

Mark Hendrick: Have not the Opposition chosen not to recognise those differences because they wish to kill the treaty. The fact that they do not have the numbers in Committee to kill it means that calling for a referendum is their last resort.

Ian Davidson: I confess that although I had a substantial personal vote, it did not single-handedly elect me to the House. There is a commitment in a manifesto from a Government on how they will take matters forward. Clearly, as the document is always a compromise between competing interests, some will be less than totally enthusiastic about elements of it. I forget which ones I was less than totally enthusiastic about.  [Interruption.] The referendum may well have been one of them.
	I return to the question whether the treaty is the same document as the constitution. Much of the discussion about that is a little like the question of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I take the view that we gave a commitment to hold a referendum only on that constitutional form. As I indicated, I believe that we made a clear commitment to have a referendum on what was produced at the end of the day.
	We should ask ourselves whether promises matter. In my constituency I suffer, as I am sure many other hon. Members do, from a pervasive cynicism about politicians in general—not about me, because most constituents think their own MP is okay; it is the other lot that they do not like. There is an assumption that politicians and parties cannot be trusted and that we will say anything to get elected. That is not constructive or helpful, particularly to those of us on the left, because we depend on popular support to put forward a programme that seizes some of the instruments of power and changes society in the way that we want. It is necessary for us to command popular support in a way that is not quite so necessary for others.
	Abandoning our proposal for a referendum because of nuanced differences and because somebody is prepared to argue that this does not mean exactly the same as that, gives out entirely the wrong message and confirms the view that we collectively, as a political class, cannot be trusted. Let us be truthful. One of the real reasons why we are not having a referendum in Britain and why the elites of Europe are not having referendums in their own countries is that they do not have confidence in the people producing the right result.
	If there was, for a moment, a feeling among those on the Government Benches that if they went for a referendum, they would win it, they would be off to a referendum like a shot. Let us not forget, for example, that Portugal wanted to hold a referendum on the treaty to demonstrate how committed it was to the European ideal, but Portugal was persuaded out of that view by the French and the British, in particular, leaning on them, saying, "If you do that, it would set a precedent that would cause us enormous difficulties because we can't carry our people with us in a referendum. Therefore you should not allow your people to have a vote on the question." That changes somewhat the implication that the treaty is so trivial that nobody in their right mind in Europe would want a referendum. The situation has been rigged to some extent by the pressure put on smaller countries not to have referendums that would be inconvenient to their colleagues.
	Let me deal with what happened when the constitution was discussed and debated in France and Holland. I am happy to say that I played my part in those defeats. I was across in France speaking at French Socialist party rallies and meetings on the constitution. I spoke partly in French, but I was applauded entirely in English in order that I could understand what was being said. It was an international gathering where speaker after speaker from other countries stood up and said to the French, "Do not believe that you who are against the constitution in France are alone in Europe."
	Throughout Europe, in every country where doubts were expressed—this tended to happen more in the smaller countries, such as Holland, Denmark and Ireland—the people expressing those doubts were told, "You're the only ones who object to the constitution. If you go against it, you will be isolated. You might very well be expelled. It will be the end of civilisation as we know it. The money will cease to come from the European Union." All of that was untrue. Members will remember what happened when France and Holland rejected the proposals. They did not get expelled, and nor would we. There was not an enormous crisis in the European Union which brought the payments, the fraud and so on to an end. It carried on pretty much as before, with a period of discussion, then a period of reflection.
	A period of reflection would be expected to allow the elites to think about where they had gone wrong, whether they ought to choose a different path and what that path should be. Indeed, some of that happened. They thought about where they had gone wrong, but they identified that as a problem of presentation. They came back with exactly the same thing in a slightly different form, but the valuable lesson that they had learned was not to make the mistake of asking their peoples what they thought of it this time round. That is where we are. Whenever there has been the opportunity to do so, the elites of Europe have managed to avoid giving the peoples of Europe any opportunity to discuss whether they should accept the treaty.
	Let me turn to the Liberals, more in sorrow, if I may say so, than anything else. How does it happen that such a once proud party is reduced to this? One thinks back to the great principles that they stood for on occasion, and how they contributed to debates, even though sometimes they were a pain in the neck and other parts of the anatomy. Nevertheless, they are now in a position whereby, on the great issue of the day, they walk out or abstain. I can understand how they were bullied into it by the threat of Shirley Williams and others leaving them if they were prepared to countenance a referendum.
	Let us be clear: some Liberal lords are prepared to fight to the last drop of Liberal blood to maintain their position. Greater love hath no MP than this, that he lay down his seat for their lordships. The Liberals in the House of Commons are prepared to lose parliamentary seats simply to keep Shirley Williams happy. I have not come across a single Liberal who believes that the policy is popular or that much of it is understood by the electorate.

Christopher Huhne: It is not, but I was listening with great interest to the hon. Gentleman's pick-and-mix attitude to the Labour party manifesto. Perhaps he missed my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) pointing out that polling evidence shows that our policy is more popular than any other on referendums. Indeed, it is twice as popular, not only with Liberal Democrats but with the whole of the public. If the hon. Gentleman wants a popular referendum, he should go for the in-out referendum, not his half-baked one.

Ian Davidson: I will, but not immediately. I want to answer one point before moving to another.
	I believe that the Liberal Democrats are being deliberately evasive about not reaching a decision on a yes-no referendum, and wanting to pose the question in terms of in or out. It is a bit like answering the question, "Are you a man or a mouse?" with, "I am a hamster." It is a deliberate distortion of the options available. Where does the Liberal party stand on yes/no? If we agree to hold a referendum, what will the Liberals do in the country? Will they advise their supporters simply to abstain?

David Howarth: I thank the hon. Gentleman for at last getting on to new clause 18, which is odd—perhaps the most bizarre amendment ever tabled. It would allow the Government to change the question in a referendum to almost anything. How does he suggest that the Government might change it? The new clause would allow them to ask, "Is the moon made of green cheese?" Secondly, it would provide for a supplementary question. What chance is there of a Government, who yesterday led their troops through the Lobby to deny the House even the possibility of discussing an in-out referendum, ordering an in-out referendum subsequent to new clause 18 being accepted? Surely new clause 18 is either pointless or useless.

Ian Davidson: I am never entirely sure whether the Liberal Democrats are quite as silly as they pretend— [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman raised a point with me; he might at least do me the courtesy of listening to my reply. My intention is to reach out to the Liberal Democrats and be helpful. It is clear that they want an in-out question. My new clause is the only way to achieve that; it is the only option on offer that gives any possibility of that question being asked— [Interruption.] Let me complete the point. I am strongly in favour of a yes-no question being asked. I am prepared to concede that, if there is sufficient public pressure, we should have an in-out question as well. Only the Liberal Democrats and the UK Independence party want that, but none the less I would be prepared to vote for it, and I did.
	However, the responsibility for garnering public support for the idea ought to be with the Liberal Democrats. I have left open the possibility of introducing an in-out question if the Liberal Democrats managed to persuade the Government of that—as I and others managed to persuade our dear leader on 20 April 2004 to accept a referendum on Europe. The policy had been entirely against a referendum, and huge numbers of my colleagues were against it—until the policy changed, when huge numbers of them were in favour. Indeed, I could not find any who had ever been against it.

Matthew Taylor: To avoid playing games, will the hon. Gentleman explain something to the Liberal Democrats? If he, as a Labour Member, cannot persuade the Government to deliver the referendum that he wants—or, indeed, an in-out referendum, which he says he also supports—how does he think the Liberal Democrats would persuade a Labour Prime Minister?

Ian Davidson: I thank hon. Members for cheering in European. That is what—three in 24 minutes? Sir Alan, how long have I got? I apologise to colleagues who might not be allowed to speak at all, given the circumstances.
	The question is actually a serious one. If the Liberal Democrats find themselves unable to support the new clause drawn up to help them, will they guide us on something that I am sure we all want to know? If my new clause is successful, what will they do in the yes-no referendum? Will they simply sit on their hands throughout?

Christopher Huhne: As we have made abundantly clear, and as the hon. Gentleman knows very well, we are very much in favour of our membership of the European Union and that is what we would argue in any yes-no referendum.

Mike Gapes: I very much agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman. It would be helpful to the House if could quote the words of Baroness Thatcher. As far as I can recall, she quoted Clement Attlee describing a referendum as
	"a device of demagogues and dictators".
	Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree with that view?

Kenneth Clarke: If my right hon. Friend will forgive me, other hon. Members are waiting to contribute. I cannot give way all the time, and I am not going to give way even to my hon. Friends who agree with me, some of whom may also be trying to catch your eye, Sir Alan.
	Finally, let me deal with a question that really must be addressed: if we find that a referendum is carried, what happens then? That is relevant; the question cannot be avoided. It will change the course of history only if we get a no vote. That illustrates my objection to referendums. The trouble with introducing a referendum into a constitution, as Mussolini well understood, is that it renders Parliament powerless. In this case, it would also render the Government powerless.
	I happen to believe that good democratic Governments often have to take tough and unpopular decisions. They do not do that if they live by newspaper headlines and focus groups; indeed, that gets them into the mess that the present Government have got themselves into. Governments have to take unpopular decisions that the focus groups do not like—that is what Margaret Thatcher did—and then offer themselves for re-election to see if they can survive democratically when, some years later, people see the consequences of what has been done.
	Let us say that on this occasion we finish the parliamentary process, in which the majorities have been about two to one in favour of the treaty of Lisbon, and we then hold a referendum. Given that everyone I have so far met who is demanding a referendum actually intends to vote no, what do we do then?  [Interruption.] Someone says that we should carry on with the present treaty. The hon. Member for Glasgow, South-West addressed this question, but effectively tried to sweep it away. The fact is that everyone across western Europe is absolutely fed up with the tedious process of carrying through reform of institutions, which it was previously thought would be pretty routine and agreed by most people, after the enlargement of the Union. If 26 other countries succeed in ratifying the treaty—that means the Irish succeeding with their referendum—and then the British come along and say, "Sadly, although we, the Government, agree with ratification, and Parliament agrees with it by two to one, we've just got a no vote at the demand of  The Sun newspaper. What do we do now?" It cannot be assumed that everyone else will renegotiate.
	My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) at least accepted that major renegotiation would have to be faced up to. The idea that the other 26 Governments, all of which will have gone through the process of getting the treaty ratified—which will have been politically costly for some of them—will then turn around and say to the Brits, "Well, of course we shall now have to negotiate a European Union on a completely different basis," is, like many of the other arguments I have heard during these debates, absolute fantasy. It would not happen.

Gerald Kaufman: I shall Of course give way to the hon. Gentleman, who was secretary of Oxford university Labour club when I was a member.

Iain Duncan Smith: Come on! I must tell the hon. Gentleman, who intervenes quite a lot, that the politics of the situation dictate what happens at the time. In the time running up to Nice, his Government were not in trouble or difficulty and were able to envisage the coming election with some sanguine sense of success. Things were different by the time they hit 2004 and 2005. The reality was that the decision was taken.
	The intriguing thing, which really bothers me, is that as I watched and listened to the Foreign Secretary, it occurred to me that I had never seen somebody speak for a Government who has looked so contorted and so twisted, and who has so turned in one argument against another. At one moment, his point was only that it was fundamental, but then it was not fundamental; then we were clearing the air, but then we were not because we were clearing fundamentals instead. The argument went round and round. If he reads it in  Hansard tomorrow, he will say to himself, "What an awful day I had. I had to say something that I know is fundamentally not true. There is no major difference between the Lisbon treaty and the constitutional treaty. What happened in between was a political imperative."
	It is worth remembering that Valéry Giscard d'Estaing said something with which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) has agreed, although the latter supports the Government's position on securing the ratification of the treaty. Mr. Giscard d'Estaing has said:
	"In the Treaty of Lisbon, the tools are largely the same. Only the order in which they are arranged in the tool-box has been changed. Why this subtle change? Above all, it is to head off any threat of referenda by avoiding any form of constitutional vocabulary".
	I do not know why we dance around as though this were a silly game. The truth is that the Heads of State and Governments of all the countries that negotiated the constitutional treaty have said to each other, "We have got ourselves in a real mess over this. We allowed the public and politicians who are not responsible members of the Government to play a part"—politicians such as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), who speaks so cogently on these matters.
	The member states believe that allowing the vox populi to get involved by having referendums in France and Holland put a kibosh on the whole thing, so they concluded that they would not do that again. They learned the lesson of all this nonsense about consulting the public, which is that EU Governments do not get what they want by doing that. They believe that they have a purpose that was laid down by their forefathers, and that they must see it through.
	Europe's bureaucrats have known for years that the way to get things done is never to ask the public if they want them to be done, because the answer will inevitably be no.

Iain Duncan Smith: It is, but that should not surprise my hon. Friend, because he has been a student of the matter for long enough.
	I draw the House's attention back to the intriguing one-sided correspondence with the Government after the collapse of the constitutional treaty and prior to their decisions and the intergovernmental conference. It is reported in the European Scrutiny Committee's third report of session 2007-08 that the Foreign Secretary's predecessor stated that there was
	"no negotiation in the run-up to the June Council until we saw the text for the first time only a couple of days before the June Council itself".
	Everybody believed that that was when the new treaty was produced, but it was not. We know as a result of a leaked letter that Angela Merkel's Government contacted the other Governments as part of the process of rebuilding the treaty.
	The Germans are wonderfully efficient. They are so efficient that they always keep their records and put everything in them. They are not trying to hide anything from their public, as our Government are. We can congratulate them on that. With ruthless efficiency, they rounded up what members of Governments had said to them in discussions and negotiations. They asked such things as how they could find ways to get the treaty through without having to show that the existing treaties would essentially have to be repealed. One question asked:
	"How do you assess the proposal made by some Member States not to repeal the existing treaties but to return to the classical method of treaty changes while preserving the single legal personality"?
	Another asked:
	"How do you assess the proposal made by some Member States using a different terminology without changing the legal substance"?
	Those are not just questions that the German Government or Angela Merkel wanted to ask. Essentially, they arose from minutes of meetings with either officials or Ministers of other countries.
	The letter is fascinating because it blows the Government's position out of the water. The Government and Angela Merkel knew all along what the process was all about. Having learned the lesson of what had happened to the constitutional treaty, they wanted its provisions back. They felt that they could not proceed without them. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe is honest about that; he believes that Europe needs them to proceed to the next stage, as did Angela Merkel and many other European leaders. The letter shows that they needed to find a way to avoid any reference to the public, such as a referendum.
	The first point about which we should be clear is that the process is a classic, cynical political mechanism. If we believe that, we shall not go far wrong. I do not want to engage in the arguments about whether there were three or 38 things in the treaty—or, as the Liberal Democrats said on television today, that there are so many thousand words versus another so many thousand. It is all meaningless nonsense. The truth is that everybody believes the treaty is basically the same as the constitution. The collapse of the pillars and the nature of the debate are critical, so there is clearly some cynicism.
	There is another reason for a referendum. People talk about the principle that the House should decide, but the truth is that the principle has become a bit of a joke. What do we really think we decide on in this place that the Government have not already told us we must decide? When did the House last manage to insert an amendment at any stage of a European treaty that reflected the will of the public or the House? It has not happened. We know about the wonderful whipping system on both sides of the House—I do not blame the Labour Government for that; I had to defy it myself in my day. The whipping system guarantees that, to a greater or lesser extent, the Government have their way and their business.

Geraldine Smith: What can I say? I spoke in the House in about 2004 and was not in favour of a referendum on the then constitution. There have been sufficient changes since then to make it a different document to be put before Parliament. If Parliament decided to abandon its responsibility this evening to determine the matter, it would be performing a great a disservice to the country.
	I am well aware of the widespread public concern in my constituency and elsewhere about the reform treaty. I am equally aware of the substantial demand for a referendum on it. I accept that people in my constituency say that they would like a referendum on the treaty. Although I understand the justifiable concerns that people have about the contents of the treaty, I firmly believe that many of those concerns are a result of wild speculation and misinformation from a multitude of sources, some of them in the House.
	I firmly believe that, if a referendum were to be held, a no vote would be the outcome, not because of any perceived or real flaws in the treaty, but because many people are currently deeply dissatisfied with many aspects of the European Union and its bureaucratic institutions and procedures. I share most of that dissatisfaction and I understand the desire to express it in a ballot.

David Heathcoat-Amory: The treaty before us is the end product of a long process of renegotiation and failed reform set in train by the Laeken declaration of 2001. We have ended up with a treaty that, instead of reforming Europe, has consolidated more powers at the top. Why does she think that her constituents and mine should be denied an opinion on whether they agree with that reform process and the treaty that has come out of it?

Geraldine Smith: I do not accept that the treaty is all bad and does not reform; there are some very good things in it. I believe that the number of EU Commissioners should be reduced, and I am pleased that that is happening. I am also interested that the treaty provides a mechanism for member states that wish to change their relationship with the European Union or withdraw from it; it means that they will be able to do so in a negotiated fashion. That has not existed before, and I would have thought that any Eurosceptic would welcome it.
	I shall try to move on. The European Union now represents 27 countries with a combined population of more than 490 million people. Its institutions and working practices are hopelessly out of date and failure to reform them will continue to constrain their ability to function anywhere near as effectively as they should. I am sure that few people, in the House or outside it, would disagree that widespread reform is essential.
	I should like to make it clear that I do not in any way perceive the Lisbon treaty as some panacea for reforming the European Union, but it will help it work slightly more effectively. It is difficult to see how an organisation that seeks to manage much of the economic, social and political affairs of 27 diverse nations—each of them answerable to their domestic voters with all their problems, aspirations and political agendas—could aspire to do anything else. However, I believe that a number of measures in the treaty will help. The Lisbon treaty offers significant improvements over the current arrangements, and that is why I am supporting it.
	Finally, I want to comment on what I believe is a fundamental flaw in our relationship with and continuing membership of the EU. It is now 34 years since we joined the European Union and 32 years since we reaffirmed our membership in a referendum. In fact, nobody under the age of 50—I count myself in that group—has had the opportunity to vote on our membership of the organisation, which affects so many aspects of our lives, even more so in recent years.
	The passage of time, allied to the enormous economic and political change that has taken place in the EU, has undoubtedly created a democratic deficit that needs to be urgently addressed—I accept that. Throughout the period in question, no mainstream political party advocated withdrawal from the EU, and I suspect that that will still be the case at the next general election. That state of affairs has left the British people with no realistic option other than to accept that membership of the EU, whatever its faults, is synonymous with UK citizenship. I do not believe for a minute that those who voted to join the EU in 1975 believed that they were making an irreversible commitment. It is high time that the question of our continuing membership of the EU was put before the British people, not as a simple yes-no question, but as a choice between clear alternatives.
	I believe that many of the perceived benefits of belonging to the EU are not dependent on our continuing membership of it, such as co-operation with EU partners on measures to deal with terrorism, people trafficking, drug and gun smuggling and other forms of international crime. Is that co-operation really dependent on our continuing membership? I do not think so. It is more likely that withdrawal from the EU would curb the ability of those who engage in such despicable practices to enter our country in the first place. Nor do I believe that the impact on trade, jobs or investment will necessarily be negative. There is plenty of evidence that if the UK's economy was relieved—

Malcolm Bruce: Towards the end of her speech, the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith) was in danger not only of being out of order, but of putting across her preferred European dimension. The trouble is that there are 60 million people in Britain, and in practice, one cannot proceed to determine our relationship with the European Union in that way.
	I have been following the most recent process closely. Indeed, I read the draft constitution before the French people rejected it. Personally, I thought that the contents were valuable, and I am glad to say that many of the most valuable parts are in the treaty of Lisbon, which is why I am happy to support that, too. Nevertheless, the constitution was an attempt to create a watershed moment in the European Union, which made it completely different in character from all the amending treaties that had gone before—from the founding treaty, the treaty of Rome, through all the others that have been mentioned, right up to the treaty of Lisbon.
	That is why, as somebody who is not an enthusiast for referendums and who believes that many of the reservations that have been expressed today are valid, I nevertheless felt that a constitution that swept up more than 50 years of European Union history, from the founding treaty to the most recent amending treaty, was an appropriate moment to redefine the relationship and give people the chance, which they have not had for more than 30 years, to determine whether the new, reformed, relaunched European Union—that was the intention—was where we wanted to go. That is why I was happy to support my party's commitment at the last election to hold a referendum on a constitutional treaty.
	However, at the very moment that we were committing ourselves to that, the French and the Dutch were deciding that no such constitutional treaty was likely to exist. I do not wish to repeat the arguments, which have already been rehearsed today, about the processes by which we moved from there to where we are now. What is a matter of concern, however, is that the process that we are using is far less transparent and consultative than it could and should be. One of the things that I particularly welcome about the treaty of Lisbon is that it gives national Parliaments a more clearly articulated role in that process. In the future—I hope that this will be in the long term, before we get to the next reforming treaty—the process may well involve the 27 national Parliaments.
	At the end of the day, however, we must accept that treaties can be negotiated only by Governments. Governments can consult a lot better, but treaties cannot be negotiated by 27 Parliaments, and they certainly cannot be negotiated by 490 million people. There comes a point when, even with the best endeavours that have been made, people have to decide whether something is good enough for them to continue. The disingenuousness and dishonesty of many of the arguments come from ignoring the consequences of that.
	It has been said—but it must be said again and again—that Conservative Members are asking for a referendum on the treaty of Lisbon, which is not a constitutional treaty, because they want to defeat it and because they know that, as the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) clearly articulated, the consequence of that would be to paralyse the Union and destroy Britain's competitive and effective relationship with it.

David Chaytor: For those of us who find the idea of an in-out referendum at some point in the future extremely attractive, does the right hon. Gentleman accept that his party's decision to abstain on the amendment has weakened its capacity to put forward the very pro-European views that he advocates?

Malcolm Bruce: My colleagues and I have repeated the explanation ad nauseam. If it is impossible for people to hear or understand it, that is their problem, not mine.
	We are engaged in a process to determine whether this country is going to be a leading member of the European Union or a continually moaning, peripheral country that is increasing becoming a tiresome irritant to the 26 other member states that want to go forward. That is why we believe that there is a case for having a defining referendum, in which we can ask the people of Britain whether they want to continue with this enterprise, as we do, or to put themselves on the margins of Europe and accept the consequences of so doing.
	In September last year, I visited Estonia with a group of liberal democrat parliamentarians and had a very constructive meeting with the Prime Minister, Andrus Ansip. He is, of course, a leading member of the liberal parties of Europe—as, indeed, is the leading opposition party in Estonia— [Interruption.] It would be fair to say that Estonia is probably the most liberal country in Europe. It is worth listening to the voice of the people of Estonia.

Austin Mitchell: Not knowing the consequences has not stopped the hon. Gentleman from asserting them very vigorously—and, in my view, inaccurately. Amendment No. 296 provides for an enabling power to have another referendum, so would that not satisfy the Liberal desire to have their in-out referendum?

Kate Hoey: I am not going to take any interventions, because I know that many Members wish to speak.
	Let me make a simple point. In April 2004 the then Prime Minister and leader of my party, Tony Blair, announced that the EU constitution would be put to a referendum. He said:
	"Let the people have the final say by way of a referendum... if we are to make the case... we will have to make it to the British people."
	The Prime Minister was emphatic:
	"There is no question of any constitutional treaty going through without the express consent of the British people... we will have a referendum."
	He went further, and said something that has not been mentioned so far today:
	"What you cannot do is... get a rejection of the treaty and bring it back with a few amendments and say, 'Have another go.' You cannot do that. If the people vote no, they vote no".
	The problem is that we have ended up with a situation in which the treaty has been brought back.
	The most honest Member in the House today—I am not saying that everyone else has not been honest, Mrs. Heal, because I know that we are all honest here—was the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke). He said clearly and specifically as a pro-European that in his view there is no difference between the constitution and the treaty. He happens to be my constituent when he is in London, so I do not want to disagree with him when he says something like that. For me, he has summed the whole thing up.
	The right hon. and learned Gentleman may be in a different party from me, but he has been so pro-European and so committed in principle to his opposition to a referendum—he has not shifted back and forth depending on whether his party leadership changed its view—that I am with him on that point. No matter what is said here today, no matter how many fine words are uttered and no matter how great the detail, the vast majority of the public know that what we are voting for in the treaty is exactly the same, and has the same intent, as the constitution on which the Prime Minister promised a referendum—a promise that was included in our manifesto.
	For me, this is about honesty in politics. It is about saying what you mean and then doing what you mean. We all have a responsibility to what we said in that manifesto, and we all have a responsibility to recognise the consequences if we do not support a referendum tonight. I hope that some of my colleagues have been influenced by the many good speeches today in favour of a referendum, but the matter is not over yet, because if we do not secure a vote tonight, it will go to the House of Lords. Do we really want to run the risk of the unelected House of Lords sending back measures that we have refused to agree to because we, as elected politicians, do not want to go along with our manifesto commitments? That would be ridiculous, and it would show what a farce the whole situation has become.
	We have an opportunity tonight to put a little faith and trust back in politics and politicians. The public are so cynical about us as individuals, although not necessarily in all constituencies, and the overall political system. The big gap that now exists between Parliament and the people out in the country will be made even bigger if we all troop into the Lobby and vote against a referendum—I hope that will not happen. I will certainly stick to my manifesto commitment and to my personal commitment—I specifically said in my election address that I supported a referendum. I hope that many of my colleagues will join me tonight.

David Curry: It is certainly true that a strong body of the press articulates vitriolic hostility to the European Union and to this treaty, and such comment is not always as informed as it might be. The comfort that I find is that I wonder how many people buy the red tops for the political comment, rather than for the coverage of media personalities, the world of sport and footballers' wives. That is quite legitimate, and occasionally all of us enjoy a surreptitious glance to relieve some of the rigours— [ Interruption. ] I invite colleagues in Portcullis House to look in the corner room where the newspapers are stacked and observe how rapidly they disappear through the course of the day. It is not always the coffee machine that people are in pursuit of.
	We constantly wring our hands about the decline of Parliament and its impotence in the face of the Executive. The real issue is the balance of power not between us and the European Union or between Parliament and the people outside, but between the Executive, whom we send into government, and elected representatives in Parliament itself. My party is devoting a huge amount of energy to looking at how we might redress the balance in the way in which our democratic processes work in the Westminster village. That is a far more urgent task than dealing with some of the fears that we are expressing at the moment.
	In the last debate in which I spoke, I said that the Eurosceptic motto might be:
	"Present fears
	Are less than horrible imaginings".
	I apologise for attributing that to Milton; if I were better read, I would have realised that it comes from Macbeth.
	If we have a referendum on this treaty, how should I argue to my constituents about other things on which we might hold a referendum? What about detention without trial? That fundamental issue of civil liberties has far greater implications for our liberties than anything contained in this treaty. I am an old-fashioned liberal—I am sorry about that—who, in a sense, echoes Roy Jenkins's view that there were many merits to the permissive society. If we move from representative government to government by plebiscite, how much of the architecture of the liberal and tolerant society would be demolished?
	I do not disagree with the thesis that there will be once-in-a-lifetime occasions when referendums are necessary. Our joining the European Union and the subsequent endorsement of that was a key point. I accept that if we were to join the single currency, it would be a sufficiently dramatic change as to require the endorsement of the people and the legitimacy that that would confer. I note that one of the biggest changes that has affected this House is devolution. Indeed, we constantly complain about the way in which the balance of power in this Chamber has been shifted by devolution, the creation of a Parliament in Scotland and an Assembly in Wales and the process in Northern Ireland. Some 85 per cent. of the British people were not consulted on the transfer of power that that brought about.
	This treaty is not a great breaking point or a hinge of our contemporary history; it is, broadly speaking, tidying up. It contains a lot of common sense, and five years down the road people will wonder whether all the terrible things that were supposed to flow from it actually happened—I suspect that they will not have happened.
	If we say no to the treaty, the European Union will not collapse and Britain will not be expelled. Europe is jolly good at muddling through. As soon as one negotiation is completed, Europe is condemned to begin the next negotiation. The one thing that cannot be done sensibly is to walk away from the negotiations, because the process is ongoing and grinding. The extent to which it works and what comes out of it at the end is amazing.
	We should not assume that we are in the same position as three or four years ago at the point of the French and the Dutch referendums, because things have moved on and a renegotiation has taken place. It would be seriously dislocating for the UK to find itself demanding that process again, and it would also be seriously dislocating for my party. I believe that my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) will be the next Prime Minister, and when we look at this directionless and purposeless Government, that becomes increasingly plausible and desirable.
	It would not be in my right hon. Friend's interests to inherit an intractable time and energy-sapping dispute with the European Union and to have it hanging over his head, so it is in my party's interests that this business is dispatched and that we move on to new business. If we do not move on, he would have to deal with nagging voices on the Conservative Benches and in the party seeking to question the whole issue of Britain's membership of the European Union. He would need three hands to deal with not only the issue of Britain's relationship with Europe in the short term and the treaty, but a bigger issue that would begin to emerge and that would threaten the success of his first term as Prime Minister. I want him to have his hands free to deal with the hugely important and urgent things that a Conservative Government would need to address.
	Equally, I think that the European Union needs no more treaty making within the foreseeable future, because other agendas such as climate change, migration and asylum, which will flow largely from climate change, terrorism, competition and the protection of the role of developing countries in a global economy. Nothing assures us that the European Union will deal with such agendas, but the treaty gives it a better chance of doing so, if the political will exists.
	We should start by dispatching the Lisbon treaty in this House, where the decision making belongs, for ratification across the European Union. We would then be able to move on to the agendas pressing on us—how the UK governs itself and how Europe can better represent the interests of all the citizens of Europe, which it increasingly encompasses.

Mike Gapes: I shall try to be brief. I put a message to all Europhobes on my website, saying that I intended to vote for the Lisbon treaty. I did so because I wanted to provoke a reaction from my constituents. Many words have been spoken about the great interest in the subject outside the House, but I have had only one e-mail and one letter from my constituents— [ Interruption. ] I am waiting for more to come.
	The e-mail said that the treaty was "introducing communism by stealth" into this country, and the letter said that because of my views, I deserved a long, lingering and painful death. That indicates the level of interest of some people. However, I have had letters from non-constituents, both before I put the message on my website and subsequently. They spoke of the German plot to take over Europe, the Pope and many other examples of the fantasies that some obsessives have about the European Union.
	Someone spoke of the need for honesty in politics, and I agree. We need to be honest about this treaty and about the basis of the debate that we are having. I will be honest: I have always opposed referendums. I was extremely disappointed and shocked in 2004 when our party leader bounced the party into that position. I cast no aspersions on the reasons for that move. I simply believe that it was a mistake then and has had some very serious and unfortunate consequences for the political debate. It has meant that there has been no open public debate on these European issues. For two years after the rejection of the constitutional treaty in France and the Netherlands, we did not really have a proper debate and discussion during the period of reflection.
	I had hoped that this debate, over the 11 interminable days, would have raised the quality of the public debate, and that our newspapers and television media would have given it detailed consideration, but sadly they are interested only in process, personalities and splits. Indeed, some of the earlier debate in Committee today reflected that. The media are not interested in the detail of why the Lisbon treaty is in Britain's interests and how it will reform the European Union to ensure a more efficient and effective way of working after enlargement to 27 countries.
	I do not wish to repeat the arguments, and I also referred to the issues in the debate on the foreign policy aspects of the treaty and on Second Reading. However, it is not helpful to have a statement from the shadow Foreign Secretary that the Foreign Affairs Committee said that the Lisbon treaty was exactly the same as the constitutional treaty. That is not what it said, and I tried to intervene again, but the right hon. Gentleman would not take the intervention. I wish to place on the record that the Committee did not say that. It pointed out that the Union Minister for Foreign Affairs had been replaced with a high representative for foreign and security policy. It also pointed out that that there were two UK-inspired but non-legally binding declarations on common foreign and security policy in the text, neither of which were in the constitution. It is therefore not true to say that the treaty is exactly the same.
	The people who are against the Lisbon treaty are trying to argue that there is no change or significant difference. As other Committees have commented, however, there are differences in some aspects of the treaty, such as the justice and home affairs issues referred to by the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne). As has been mentioned, there are the UK Government's red lines, which mean that the treaty is different for the UK than it is for the other 26 member states—or the other 25, because Poland has some association with the UK on some issues. That is how the debate should have been conducted.

Mike Gapes: I want to conclude. The debate in our media has not helped to clarify the issues or people's understanding of them. The debate in some parts of the House has not helped to get that clarity either. I understand the frustrations of the Liberal Democrats, which were referred to by the Chairman of the Select Committee on International Development, the right hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce). They feel that their position has not been put forward. However, if they think it through, they will see that their model of some cathartic "big bang" referendum will not solve the problem. The obsessive anti-Europeans will never accept the result. They will come back again and again, and keep demanding.
	The situation will be like the referendum in Palau. I do not know whether hon. Members are aware of that case. There was an issue about whether the US could station some military facilities there, and those involved voted seven times until they got the right result. The Eurosceptics will never accept the outcome, and so they will keep coming back. That undermines democracy and parliamentary sovereignty, and I do not believe that it is in the interests of the House or the British people to move to a referendum culture. We need to strengthen the power of the Select Committees and this House to scrutinise the Executive— [ Interruption. ] We need a more democratic second chamber or to abolish the one that we have completely. We need greater media understanding. Where are the media? They do not report these debates and so the public are not made aware of them.  [ Interruption. ] For that reason, I shall vote against a referendum and support the Lisbon treaty.  [ Interruption. ]

Peter Lilley: I take your point, Mrs. Heal, and entirely withdraw my previous remarks.
	The first argument that supporters of the change of heart deploy is that the Lisbon treaty is less important than previous treaties. The only question that faces those who made a promise about the constitution is how the treaty compares with it—not with Maastricht or any other reforming treaty, but with the one on which they promised their constituents a vote. The European Scrutiny Committee has said that the treaty is substantially the same as the constitution. We know that almost all the leaders in Europe who are free to do so have said that the documents are the same. No Minister has explained to us why the Spanish Prime Minister, the author of the constitution, Giscard d'Estaing, the Belgian Foreign Minister, the Italian Prime Minister and countless other leading lights should say things that are untrue. Why would they say that the two documents are fundamentally the same if they are fundamentally different? Ministers have not even the addressed the point.
	The second argument is that no countries on the continent have held referendums on the Lisbon treaty. Of course they have not. Those that were required to hold referendums did so on the constitutional treaty. If they got a yes vote, they decided that they did not need another referendum on a document that is substantially the same. If they got a no vote, they decided not to get another biff in the face, and to pretend that the Lisbon treaty is different.
	The third argument is that all the Governments of Europe signed up to the statement that the constitutional concept had been abandoned. I have before me the words of the statement that was issued after the Council meeting. It does, indeed, state that the constitutional concept was abandoned, but it continued, in the same sentence and the next, that, instead of
	"repealing all existing Treaties and replacing them by a single 'constitution'... the Reform Treaty will introduce into the existing Treaties, which remain in force, the innovations resulting from the 2004 IGC."
	That IGC endorsed and decided to implement the European constitution. The statement makes no bones about it. Therefore, every time the Foreign Secretary quotes the statement without the second part, he misleads—unintentionally—the House of Commons and the British people.
	The fourth argument is obscure—indeed, it is designed to be obscure. As Samuel Johnson said, if you want to escape from a difficult hole, emulate the squid and squirt black ink in their faces while making your getaway. Supporters of the change of heart have adopted the argument that the constitutional treaty involved repealing all the existing treaties whereas the Lisbon treaty does not. They fail to say that the constitutional treaty abolished existing treaties but reintroduced all their powers in its text.
	There are always two possible ways in which to move from an existing treaty, or set of treaties, or existing law, or set of laws, to a new final text. The first is to amend, in detail, all the existing laws until they are brought into the relevant form and adjusted and amended until they equal a final text; the second is to repeal all the existing laws and treaties and replace them with a new text incorporating those laws and any changes.
	When we do that in this House—in respect, for example, of accumulated finance Bills—we normally call it a consolidation Bill. We consider it less, not more, important; we devote less time to it because it does not change any laws, but simply brings them all together. Essentially, what the European constitution did was to bring all the existing treaties together to make one document. If there is any doubt about the differences between those different routes, the Government have allayed them—they have published not only the Lisbon treaty, but the consolidated treaties that result from the Lisbon treaty. We know the final text that we have reached through the process of detailed amendment, and I have to report that it is almost identical to the consolidated text of the original European constitutional treaty. There is precious little difference, and the Government are adopting mere persiflage with their argument.
	The Government say that a referendum is incompatible with parliamentary government. With a great flourish, the Foreign Secretary ended by saying that we should do what electors pay us to do. Well, after the last election, they sent us to fulfil our promises. All of us, except those who had dissociated themselves from the manifesto promise, were sent here to implement the promise to have a referendum on this treaty. If we do not do so, we are not doing what the electors pay us to do.
	Those who believe in parliamentary government should be particularly wary, especially as that promise was made before the last election precisely to take out of the electoral arena the issue of whether the constitutional treaty should be ratified. People were told that that was done because they would have a separate vote on it in a referendum. If they are not to be granted that vote, Members were elected on false pretences—this House was elected having told people not to worry their little heads about Europe at the general election because they would face the decision later. It is an absolute abnegation of parliamentary democracy not to fulfil the pledge in those circumstances.
	Finally, people say that the treaty is only a modest step and is no bigger than previous treaties. However, each step brings us nearer to a final point. If someone is on their way to Beachy Head, the first few miles do not matter, but the last few steps near the edge matter a great deal. I shall cite Hegel and Marx, authorities who may have more force on the Government Benches. They said that beyond a certain point, quantitative changes result in a qualitative change. Beyond a certain point, accumulative slices of the cake through successive treaties bring about a substantive, qualitative change. Over a period, if we keep on allowing without any check such transfers of power from us to the European institutions, we will cease to be a nation delegating powers to ancillary bodies and ourselves become an ancillary body allowed only to exercise such powers as a nation called Europe allows us to.
	I do not think that my electors or those of any hon. Member want that to happen. If they do, they ought to have the chance to affirm it in a referendum and see whether they carry the day.

The First Deputy Chairman: That is a not a point of order for the Chair; it is a matter for debate. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will get the opportunity to put the record straight.

Michael Connarty: The hon. Gentleman is recorded as having voted against a referendum nine times in the Committee. I understand why Members of the Scottish national party intend to vote as they do, however, because of the competences, and I sympathise with them on that.

Mark Francois: This has been a debate about broken promises. First, the Government promised a referendum. Then, in lieu of a referendum, they promised the House of Commons 20 days of detailed parliamentary debate. Then they broke that promise, and allocated only 14 days—less than half the number given to debate the treaty of Maastricht. Then they broke that promise. They told us that we would give the Bill line-by-line scrutiny, but they so manipulated the debate that the detailed scrutiny of the amendments was left until the end of the day, and large groups of amendments were not debated at all, including critical amendments on borders, visas, immigration, asylum, defence, social policy and the free movement of workers. None of those provisions was subjected to line-by-line scrutiny at all, yet such scrutiny was the Government's main excuse for not granting a referendum in the first place.
	I turn first to the Foreign Secretary's speech. At the risk of being ungallant to him, I must say that he did not have a very good day. First, he tried to argue that the Government had originally promised a referendum on the EU constitution because it represented fundamental changes to our relationship with the European Union. Then, when he was pressed further, the right hon. Gentleman said that it did not represent a fundamental change in our relationship with the EU. Taking interventions from all sides, he completely dropped the ball when he said that the reason why the Government promised a referendum in the first was that they needed to "clear the air". Well, if we needed to clear the air then, why do we not clear the air now and give the people of this country the referendum that they were promised? If that is the only argument that the Foreign Secretary can put to the House, I look forward to the rapid promotion of the Minister for Europe.
	Let me turn now to deal with those parliamentary statesmen, the Liberal Democrats, who are planning, I am told—with some honourable exceptions—to abstain constructively. They have no mandate for an in-out referendum in their 2005 manifesto, which promised a referendum on the EU constitution and gave no promise on an in-out referendum. They are arguing a case to paper over the cracks in their policies without any endorsement from the people who sent them to this House of Commons. That is the mess that they find themselves in. My right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) made the point about the missing cojones—and I have to say that, at the end of this debate, they have still not been discovered. The Government lost a pair of discs; the Liberal Democrats lost a pair of something else—and they have not yet been found.
	Tonight we are taking an important decision for our country, so what are the Liberal Democrats going to do? What is the party of Lloyd George, Asquith and Gladstone going to do tonight when the future of our country is in the balance? They are going to go and hide in the toilets because they do not have the guts to vote on the question either one way or the other! And it is the Liberal Democrats who promise us a new politics, a politics of change. If that is all they have to offer, they should go back to the starting board and start again.
	The two documents are the same. The Council mandate of the intergovernmental conference 2004 brought forward almost all the same innovations. That is how it was done. The European Scrutiny Committee said that the two were substantially equivalent and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing summed it up perfectly when he said:
	"Public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly... All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way."
	In the latest poll, 88 per cent. of the British people wanted a referendum. This House collectively, and all parties, gave their word that they would have it. We dishonour this place if we do not keep that promise. We say: let the promise be kept, let the question be put, let the Commons retain its honour in the eyes of the public, and let the people decide.

Linda Gilroy: Last week, Plymouth was awash with rumours that our naval base was to close within five years, that our dockyard was in danger, and that the Royal Navy was being run down and let down. Some found this bizarre and bemusing, but others were worried, and, for those who were worried, I was angry because it was all so unnecessary. I was even more concerned to hear of one person, who was set to move their home from up north to Devonport, bringing with them valuable skills, who was nearly put off doing so.
	I want to start by looking at the role of the Royal Navy in the 21st century, and at the threats that it is being configured to face. Understanding those factors is crucial to understanding the future for Devonport. Opportunities, as well as challenges, arise from the revolution in British military capabilities and, as ever, there will be a central role for the Royal Navy, which our city has such a proud record in supporting.
	In the cold war, the Navy existed principally to counter the threat of Soviet submarines in the Greenland-Faroes-Iceland gap. It does not take a strategic genius to realise that that threat has pretty much gone. There might be concerns about Russia, but they are now of a very different character and scale. The cold war gave rise to the need for large numbers of anti-submarine frigates, small aircraft carriers carrying anti-submarine helicopters, and deep-water minesweepers optimised for the cold north Atlantic.
	The threats of today and tomorrow arise from international terrorism and from rogue or failing states. These in turn are intertwined with a series of other issues, such as the rise of piracy, the trafficking of drugs and people, and humanitarian disasters. It is perhaps more difficult to articulate the threat now than it was during the cold war or in the first half of the 20th century. Indeed, the uncertainty that now exists in the world is in many ways the danger itself.
	Today, the deployment of our armed services most often takes place in coalition alongside the US and others. Forty other countries are involved in the NATO international security assistance force mission in Afghanistan, and more than 20 are involved in Iraq. As the years go by, a European coalition might become an increasingly likely basis for deploying a joint capability. It is against that background that the announcement about the 65,000-tonne aircraft carriers needs to be viewed.
	Britain is one of a handful of NATO countries that has largely got to grips with making changes to ensure that our armed forces, and their equipment, are relevant to the challenges that we face today and the threats that we may face tomorrow, and that they are interoperable with those of key allies. For the Royal Navy, that has meant a transformation from a cold war force to a versatile, multi-faceted fleet with a range of capabilities. Out have gone the large numbers of escorts optimised for anti-submarine warfare, and in their place have come larger aircraft carriers, new amphibious ships, better kit for the Royal Marines—as well as more Royal Marines—a new generation of nuclear submarines, and the maritime airborne surveillance and control aircraft, which will provide general situational awareness and be able to control the carriers' aircraft. There will also be a fleet of more flexible and agile vessels, in the shape of the future surface combatant.
	Today's Navy is making a significant contribution to the present conflicts, in the form of landing forces, artillery bombardment in support of ground forces, the minesweepers that clear Iraqi ports, and naval auxiliaries delivering humanitarian supplies, to name but a few. Even in landlocked Afghanistan, huge numbers of naval personnel—including reservists—are involved. The Royal Navy is unique among the three services in operating not only at sea, but on the land and in the air. Many people outside communities such as Plymouth fail to realise that the Royal Marines, who have been fighting with such intensity in Afghanistan and Iraq are, in fact, part of the Navy. Likewise, many of the aircraft so vital to operations in those countries are naval aircraft flown by naval pilots.
	This country needs a strong Royal Navy as much now as it ever has. In no way is it being sidelined, but it must be tailored to the needs of today and tomorrow. We need large carriers that can deploy significant numbers of aircraft anywhere in the world they are needed, so as to avoid relying on foreign airfields and the diplomatic implications and restrictions that that can bring. We need submarines armed with missiles that can strike deep inland with pinpoint accuracy, that can gather intelligence, or that can land special forces. That is why the Government have equipped all our fleet submarines with Tomahawk and are building a new generation of Astute class submarines.
	We need amphibious ships that can carry troops and their equipment and that can deploy them ashore by landing craft, by helicopter or directly onside—or, conversely, evacuate British nationals or foreign civilians from harm's way, as we saw happening two summers ago in Lebanon. The helicopter carriers, assault ships and landing ships represent a complete modernisation of our entire amphibious flotilla. We need sealift vessels and support ships that can support forces ashore for extended periods of time. That is why the Government will renew the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Service through the military afloat reach and sustainability project.
	I sometimes wonder whether the Opposition have cottoned on to the importance and the nature of those changes. So much of what they say seems to be rooted in cold war thinking, just as their economic policy is in Thatcherism and their social policy is in Victorian thinking. Certainly, they seem very preoccupied with ship numbers rather than appreciating that what is really important is having a wide, balanced and flexible range of capabilities.
	The Navy has a very positive future, as central to UK defence policy as the other services. The transformation of capabilities to meet modern threats is covered in an excellent article by Dr. Eric Grove in the February 2008 edition of the parliamentary briefing, "Tomorrow's Royal Navy for Tomorrow's World". He concludes that when all of this change has worked through:
	"It would be hard to deny that such a capability did not make the UK a world power of significance, as one would expect from a country with one of the largest defence budgets in the world. Observers might well then be looking back at the Brown years as those when the seeds were finally laid for a renaissance of British Maritime power and global presence."
	As my noble Friend the Minister with responsibility for defence equipment and support said loud and clear in an article for Plymouth's  The Herald last week, Devonport, its naval base and its dockyard are central to that future.
	Let me deal specifically with Devonport's role. I am pleased to see in her place on the Front Bench my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Alison Seabeck) in her role as Whip. Devonport will be the only yard in the UK with the capability to undertake important work on nuclear submarines. I am certain that our prudent Prime Minister and our Chancellor of the Exchequer are not going to replicate the £1 billion investment in the infrastructure that was made in the D154 dock any time soon. The dockyard has two more refuelling refits on the Vanguard class submarines, Vigilant and Vengeance. Thereafter, there will probably be two, if not three, life extension refits on the Vanguard boats, pending introduction of the new deterrent, for which Parliament gave the go-ahead for the design stage last year. That equates to 12 to 14 years' work for a Babcock Devonport work force of more than 2,500 people.
	In parallel, the yard's unique facilities mean that the dockyard will be there to carry out deep maintenance periods on the Trafalgar class—wherever they are based—because of the docking constraints at Faslane. There is also the de-fuelling programme, so it is nonsense to talk of our dockyard being in danger under current Government policy, as the contracts in hand amount to more than £1 billion over the next 10 years.
	Of course, deep maintenance work on surface ships will be essential to help with the peaks and troughs of the submarine workload. Irrespective of base porting issues, as it moves to complete the terms of the business agreement with Babcock for the purchase of the dockyard during the course of this year and as it seeks to agree these matters with the other major marine companies through the surface ship support alliance, Ministry of Defence commercial arrangements will need to recognise that. As the new carriers are built, Rosyth's capacity will be fully occupied, allowing further surface ship refits to be allocated to Devonport—an issue to which I will return.
	We are, of course, already home to the Navy's biggest amphibious ships, Albion and Bulwark. Plans are under way to move Royal Marine assets into the south yard. With that, the naval base can become a centre of excellence for amphibious warfare. We are also home to the Navy's hydrographic surveying squadron—five ships that do vital work in charting the world's oceans. With the Met Office in Exeter, the Hydrographic Office in Taunton—both MOD agencies—and the fast developing, world-class marine science partnership based in Plymouth itself, our region has a cluster of complementary activities in marine science and engineering that can only grow with climate change, which is such a strongly emerging challenge. We are bidding strongly to become the home for the new marine management organisation, which will come with the marine Bill.
	Since the Conservatives closed Portland naval base in the 1990s, we have been home to Flag Officer Sea Training and its staff. As First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Jonathon Band says:
	"It is the quality of our people that underpin all that the Royal Navy does: dedicated; motivated; well trained; and loyal. Their determination, courage and selfless attitude has been displayed time and again."
	FOST is what gives focus to that. It puts through their paces not just British warships, but foreign warships from numerous navies. Plymouth's hosting of scores of warships each year from every corner of the globe is a hugely valuable asset. However, if Devonport is to continue to provide its excellent service to the Navy, key considerations must be respected. I have made them clear in countless meetings with Ministers at both the Ministry of Defence and the Treasury, and I hope my right hon. Friend the Minister will confirm that the messages have sunk in.
	First, there is the constant need to ensure that the strategically important nuclear work force is maintained. Skills, expertise and experience must not be allowed to atrophy, or to be lost in the periods between submarine refits. As I said, it is vital for Devonport to secure sufficient maintenance and refit work on surface ships.
	Secondly, there is the importance of respecting our nuclear covenant. Devonport is currently home to operational nuclear submarines, to those undergoing refit and to those awaiting disposal. The people of Plymouth have always been supportive and understanding of that, but they will not tolerate Devonport without a broader thriving defence sector. Stripping out the fleet base porting and warship refit work and leaving only submarine work is not acceptable. Apart from the need for such work to maintain the skills base, we must gain positive benefit and local economic prosperity through a broad base of surface ship work.
	Thirdly, Plymouth must remain an operational base for the Royal Navy. Refits and maintenance are not enough. In 1997 I inherited from my Conservative predecessor a constituency that contained the poorest ward in England, which was not unrelated to the careless way in which the Tories had allowed the dockyard to be run down in the 1990s.
	I think the message has been received that the MOD must play its part in removing jobs from the overheated south-east, which includes Portsmouth. I know that the MOD is delivering on its targets, but I know from my work in the Select Committee on Defence that it could do more.
	As I have said, I am grateful for the countless meetings to which my right hon. Friend the Minister and his colleagues have agreed, but I am sure he will not be surprised to hear that I have a list of questions to put to him. Satisfactory answers to those questions would help us to chart the way forward for Devonport in the immediate future.
	First, following the naval base review we need assurances that all possible help will be forthcoming to enable surplus land to be released quickly, along with the support and investment that will be necessary to deal with its decontamination. For decades we have complained that the MOD is slow when it comes to dealing with land release. On this occasion Project Roundel has been introduced in double-quick time, but we need to know that it will continue to proceed rapidly, and in a way that maximises benefit to the local economy beyond the term of the current base commander, Commodore Simon Lister, who has done so much to make this happen.
	Secondly, assurances have been given by the naval base review team leader to the Devonport task force group, which I chair—and at the recent meeting between my right hon. Friend, Plymouth Members of Parliament and trade union leaders—that work will continue be done to assess socio-economic issues associated with the follow-through from the naval base review, and any issues arising from the base-porting of ships.
	Will my right hon. Friend confirm that detailed information will be available to enable a full and transparent assessment to be made of any socio-economic impact that arises from any of the changes? How near are we to knowing where we are on base-porting issues? Is the date days, weeks or months away? Can he scotch the rumour unleashed among others last week that FOST will be moved from Plymouth?
	My final question—for now—concerns the future surface combatant. I know that it is still at the very early initial-concept stage. Can my right hon. Friend tell us something about the role of those vessels, and will he ensure that serious consideration can be given to a role for Devonport in leading in-service support for them?
	Plymouth's defence sector remains vital to our local economy, and as a city we need to be on the front foot to ensure that it remains vibrant. I believe that, as Babcock Marine has established its headquarters in Plymouth, we have every reason to be confident not just about naval-base activity and our traditional role in submarines but about new as well as traditional ways of supporting the Royal Navy, and the many activities associated with its surface ships of today and tomorrow.
	I am grateful to have had the opportunity to present those issues to the Minister, and I look forward to hearing his response.

Bob Ainsworth: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy) on securing the debate, and it is good to see that my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Alison Seabeck) is present to support her. The comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton made it clear why she is considered to be a champion not only of her city but of the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines.
	I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and the House that recent suggestions that we are planning to close the naval base at Devonport are without foundation, and I can confirm that there are no plans for flag officer sea training to move from Devonport. I will address her other questions later.
	Devonport, along with the other naval bases at the Clyde and Portsmouth, will continue to provide the support that ensures that our Navy remains one of the best in the world. The defence industrial strategy laid down a challenge to the UK maritime industry to reduce its overheads and invest in the facilities and skills needed to meet the future demands of the Royal Navy. It was clear that we could not rely on industry alone to achieve the necessary rationalisation. Therefore, in September 2006, we launched the naval bases review. After a period of analysis, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence announced in July of last year that all three naval bases were to be retained and optimised. That decision secured the futures of the naval bases and remains the position today. Since that announcement, work has been progressing at each of the naval bases to improve the efficiency of the support provided. Going forward, this implementation work has now been incorporated into a single programme: the maritime change programme.
	Industry has a big part to play in the rationalisation, as Devonport has seen through the acquisition of Devonport Management Ltd by Babcock Marine. That is an important step in the managed rationalisation of the UK maritime industrial base. Along with the formation of the joint venture between BAE Systems and VT Group, it is a key component in ensuring long-term balance in supply and demand after the carrier. It will also help to embed the right behaviours and benefits into ship-build and support programmes as we move to through-life solutions.
	Devonport is playing an integral part in the maintenance and upkeep of the Royal Navy surface fleet. Babcock Marine has recently completed the successful upkeep of the Type 22 frigate HMS Cumberland, and is currently undertaking a similar overhaul of the Navy's helicopter carrier, HMS Ocean. Babcock Marine, along with Fleet Support Ltd at Portsmouth, is working closely with the Ministry of Defence to allocate future upkeep packages through the auspices of the surface ship support project.
	In addition, Devonport is a vital element of the UK's submarine programme. Babcock Marine is providing direct support to the Navy's submarine flotilla; for example, a significant milestone was recently achieved when HMS Victorious was successfully refloated in her dock. That was a significant step in a complex three-year project to refuel and refit the submarine. We have to be realistic, however, and must not lose sight of the fact that the number of ships requiring maintenance and repair has been reducing, and in the future as the older classes of submarines leave service and we introduce more capable vessels requiring less maintenance, it will be inevitable that fewer refits will be required.
	I know that my hon. Friend has been working hard with other stakeholders in Plymouth to develop further the city and build for the future. It is only right that its future should build on the success of its maritime past. While I know that the potential loss of jobs recently announced by Babcock is disappointing, there is still, as I have said, much to celebrate.
	I can assure my hon. Friend that through the maritime change programme we will continue to work closely with Babcock Marine to devise an optimal programme of submarine and surface ship work in order to maintain what is a most valuable skill base. I can also reassure her that I, my ministerial colleagues and officials in the Department are fully aware of the local feeling in Devonport about the mix of submarine and ship support work.
	As my hon. Friend knows, we are committed to making further investment in Devonport over the next few years. This includes the approval of a £180 million investment to upgrade nuclear refitting facilities and to support the decommissioning of nuclear submarines. There has been recent discussion in various quarters that some of the Royal Navy vessels based at Devonport might be moved. I want to reassure my hon. Friend that we have not taken any decisions to change the base-porting arrangements for ships or boats at Devonport, or at the other two naval bases.
	As my hon. Friend is aware, the Department is undertaking a planning round. In it, we always consider a number of different options, many of which are not taken beyond initial consideration. I stress that no decisions have yet been made, and while I am unable to give an indication of the timetable for those decisions, I can reiterate the assurances that I have given to my hon. Friend on other occasions that I am committed to keeping her and others informed throughout the process. As the maritime change programme moves forward, we will continue fully to engage with a wide range of stakeholders, including the trade unions and other Government Departments, as well as those locally in the south-west, as more detailed plans become available.
	As my hon. Friend said, it is important that the Department does not take decisions without understanding the socio-economic and environmental impact of any changes at any of the naval bases. I can assure her that my officials and I will be as open as possible with her and the local authority.
	To answer my hon. Friend's other questions, project Roundel—the sale of land at the Devonport estate—is at an early stage and it is too early to determine the time scales for disposal. However, I can confirm that our intention is to work closely with the local authority in a way that benefits the local economy. I can understand her concern that we move that project forward as soon as we are able.

Bob Ainsworth: As I said, I cannot give a time scale, but it is not my intention to delay the process. As I also said, I will be as open as I can with my hon. Friend going forward. We do not want to delay the process; we want to move forward with it as quick as we can.
	The future surface combatant is expected to build on the capabilities of the existing Type 22 and Type 23 frigates. This capability includes delivering maritime force protection, providing maritime security to deployed forces, global maritime reach and maritime support to civil organisations. The FSC is at the early stages of concept design and the detailed user requirements have not yet been defined, so I am afraid that I cannot give my hon. Friend the assurances she requested. However, I can assure her that there are no reasons at the moment why Devonport should not be considered to have a role in the support of these vessels.